


Aether

by apparitionism



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-10 13:02:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2026059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apparitionism/pseuds/apparitionism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the interest of increasing the number of works in the Bering & Wells tag, here is a relatively silly piece set in the Warehouse, in a time of happy-family togetherness (which probably means most of S4 and S5 never happened, which is basically true, right?). Some small edits have been made since this appeared on tumblr, many months ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aether

“I was going to go, you know,” Helena comments, almost idly.

Myka’s head whips around, and she stares. “Go? As in, leave? Again? When were you going to do this? And speaking of when, when were you planning on telling me about it?”

Helena’s eyes widen; she’s the one staring now. “Leave? You mean leave _here_? Leave _you_? Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know why you’d do that. You’re the one who just said you were going to go.”

“Not go, as in leave. Heavens, no. No, I meant back then, and I meant go _in my rocket_.” Helena enunciates this last as if she is certain there will be consequences if any word goes unheard.

“You were going to go… up into space? In your rocket? With Joshua’s trumpet? That wouldn’t have been a very good idea, would it?”

“Well, no, obviously not. But of course you will recall that I did not intend Joshua’s trumpet to be misused as it was. The idea was not to send something up into space such that it never came back; the idea was to send myself into space. To see. And then to come back.” She says this with a slight preen.

“That wouldn’t have been a very good idea either,” Myka says. “I’m pretty sure you would have exploded, right? Because it isn’t like you pressurized it, did you? It’d be zero-g, of course, even assuming you made the air breathable, which even though we haven’t talked about this very much, you probably didn’t, but maybe you did, because it’s you… I guess maybe the whole thing would’ve been a fine idea, because it’s you, and you would have figured it all out… why are you looking at me like that?” Because Helena has got her “indulge the darling child” look on, the one that says “I have thought this through with both hands, twice, and now you are doing it too, but for the first time; it is the most precious.”

Helena says, “I would not have figured it all out, sadly. I would have died, and rather unpleasantly, I suspect. You see, I had no idea that space was a vacuum. I knew that the air became thin, of course, so I had attempted to account for _lower_ pressure, but not the functional equivalent of _zero_ pressure.”

“I suppose we all work better under pressure,” Myka giggles. Then she’s sorry she giggled, because Helena now gives her the “do not be silly while I am being serious” look. It always makes Myka want to laugh even harder, and that rarely goes well.

“We thought it was aether,” Helena tells her sternly.

“You thought what? You thought it was either… what or what?”

“I refuse to play that asinine ‘who’s on first’ language game again,” Helena huffs.

“It is not asinine. It is comedic genius,” Myka says.

“It involves _baseball_ , which is a bastardization of cricket. In any event: not _eye-_ ther. _Eee_ -ther. The rarefied air of space. There was something _there_.”

Myka squints at Helena. “Yeah, you would have died. And that would have been really, really bad. Is there some reason you’re bringing this up right now?”

“No, Myka, just idle conversation… of course there is a reason! Or rather, there is a reason it came to my mind just now: One of the tasks on the list Arthur left for me was shelving Signor Torricelli’s vacuum.”

“I hate to sound like Pete, but this really isn’t my area: some Italian guy invented the vacuum cleaner?”

“Not the vacuum _cleaner_. The first laboratory vacuum.”

“Oh. Oh! So what does it do?”

Helena looks at her as if she’s simple. “It creates a vacuum.”

Myka, to what she’s pretty sure is her credit, resists the urge to smack her. “I mean, what does the _artifact_ do. I’m not a complete idiot.”

“I will refrain,” Helena says grandly, “from pointing out that _you_ compared yourself to your partner just now. And the artifact is actually fairly straightforward. Technically, it is Torricelli’s original barometer, which functions by means of the creation of a void, or vacuum; the artifact does precisely that. Unfortunately, said vacuum is created by expanding whatever container the artifact senses… and the artifact has a tendency to define ‘container’ quite broadly, from small boxes to entire buildings. It has killed a great many people over the years, and apparently it must be shelved quite carefully so as not to be tempted to infiltrate, or rather, I suppose, to expand, containers adjacent to it. A fascinating thing, really.”

“So you started thinking about vacuums, as in space.”

“So I did. And I was so proud of that rocket. I was so sure that I was going to blaze such a trail… I was so disappointed when we had no choice but to launch it improperly, for it took me such a very long time to build the thing in the first place. Materials alone nearly bankrupted poor Charles.”

“Well, you made him the money. Seems only fair you should have used it how you wanted to.”

“I had to be quite clandestine about it. I can only imagine what Charles would have said, had I told him of my plans—had I _shown_ him what I was building. The scale alone would likely have made him faint.”

“Faint? He would have fainted? I’ve seen pictures; he doesn’t seem like the fainting type.”

“Well, he wasn’t really. I’m exaggerating for effect. But I did have to write something sensational in order to refill the family coffers.”  
  
“And that sensational thing was… oh, I know, it had to have been _The Invisible Man_ , right? Because of the timing.”

“Tell me, have you sat down and plotted out a timeline of exactly when I must have written every work?”

Myka nods solemnly. “Down to which days were writing days and which days were Warehouse days.”

Helena gapes. Then she clearly realizes she’s being teased. She raises her palms to the heavens.

Myka says, “I do have the years down. The memory thing. I know at least the publication year of everything I’ve read, not just your stuff, I mean if I bothered to look in the first place. And I obviously would have bothered to look with yours, what with wanting to know what you could have known, and what you were making up out of thin air. Oh! Out of thin air! I just got that. Thanks to you!”

“I’m glad to have been of service in some small way,” Helena says. A smile sneaks onto her face. “The air must be rather thin up where you are, as well.”

“You think you’re funny,” Myka sniffs, “but you’re not.”

“Evidence suggests that you would not recognize comedic genius if you were to encounter it, so your opinion in the matter is really not—”

“Helena?” Myka says, a little tentatively, because she thinks she might be seeing things that aren’t there. It’s almost as if Helena’s… puffing up?

“What? I’ll concede, reluctantly, that I’m not actually a genius in the realm of comedy, if that’s what you’re after. Wait. What? What did I just say? I feel… a little…” She slumps to the ground in what looks awfully like a real faint—Myka would have suspected her of doing it for show, because of the Charles comment earlier, but now Helena’s entire body really _is_ swelling up; her fingers look like sausages, and her clothes seem way too tight.

“Helena!” Myka yells. She crouches down next to her and shakes her, not too violently, but Helena does open her eyes.

“What happened?” Helena asks. Now she sounds like her tongue’s too big for her mouth.

“You fell over, like you fainted, and you look all swollen. Are you allergic to something new? Do I need to get the epi-pen?” Myka’s just this close to panicking; what could Helena be allergic to that they hadn’t known about?

“I think… oh god, I think it’s the Torri…” And she slumps back down.

“It’s the vacuum, it’s the vacuum,” Myka babbles. “It’s got to be the vacuum, because that’s what happens, that’s why they wear pressure suits, so why am I not passing out, what does it think the container is, but it doesn’t matter, where’s the thing shelved?” She runs for the computer, her hands shaking—she wills them to stop; she can’t _type_ like this—and finds the reference, but does Helena have the kind of time it’s going to take for her to get down there and neutralize it again? God, think! She absolutely has to protect Helena’s head and chest, so what can she do? She sees that Pete’s left a football helmet in the office, so she grabs it and shoves it onto Helena’s head; then she rips whichever of Artie’s sweaters from the back of his chair and twists it like a tourniquet around Helena’s torso. Then she takes off running into the Warehouse, chanting “laboratory aisle, third shelf up, laboratory aisle, third shelf up” like she’s Rain Man, because she just knows that this would be the one time her memory would desert her.

****

Claudia follows Pete into Artie’s Warehouse office. There won’t be any Artie there for a couple of days, so it’s okay that they’re both carrying bags full of burritos. Artie will never know it happened… unless Pete bloops salsa all over the research table again. Claudia had never known that hot sauce could _actually_ burn something, but there was still a scorchy sort of mark on the tabletop… hence the outlawing of all food in the office, but also, hence the willingness to be outlaws right now, with Artie out in the field. Some literal field, in fact, with Steve, who had shot Claudia the “why me” as Artie had tossed a file and a plane ticket at him. So Claudia shot Steve the “you will always owe me, buster,” and Steve had smiled. Claudia knows she can’t pull that one out too often, but she really hadn’t wanted to go to Iowa and deal with some ping having to do with corn detassling. Which, who even knew that existed as a thing that people had to _do_?

She’s idly thinking she should have gotten a corn tortilla instead of a flour one when she practically buries her face in Pete’s back: he’s stopped solidly, right in front of her, without any word at all. He’s so much bigger than Claudia that she basically has to put her whole body in reverse, then back into drive, in order to get around him.

And then she sees why he’s stopped: H.G.’s lying on the floor, tied up, wearing a football helmet, looking like a bloaty corpse that’s been in the water for days. “Oh my _god_ ,” Claudia says. “Is she _dead_?”

This prods Pete to start moving, and he leaps across the room to H.G. He feels for a pulse, then says, “She’s not dead, but she’s not exactly in good shape. What is the _matter_ with her? And why… why all this? Did somebody get in? Did they… wait, where’s Myka?”

Claudia looks around, as if Myka’s likely to pop out from behind a bookcase and yell “April fool!” Which she would be thrilled if Myka did, and then H.G. stood up and shook herself back into perfection like she does, and everything would be fine. But everything is obviously not fine. Claudia runs to the computer and pulls up the security log. “Nobody got in, and nobody left. So Myka’s got to be here somewhere, and whatever happened to H.G. has to be some kind of whammy.”

“What kind of whammy makes you look like a whale and makes you wear Jim Brown’s football helmet and… a really ugly sweater that looks like moths ate it and spit it back up?”

“You better not say that when Artie’s around, man; you will get in so much trouble.”

“Okay, fine, Jim Brown’s helmet and Artie’s sweater. And where’s Myka? MYKA!” he bellows.

“Don’t you think she’s probably trying to figure out whatever it was that whammied H.G.? Maybe she knows already and she’s out trying to bag it.”

“You said nobody left!”

“Okay, maybe she’s down on the floor trying to bag it. Lemme Farnsworth her; she’s always got that thing on her. Myka!” Claudia shouts into her Farnsworth, then wonders why she’s shouting. Pete’s clearly infected her with some volume virus.

Myka doesn’t answer right away, and for a second Claudia panics. She looks down at H.G.; Pete’s trying to wake her up, but nothing, apparently, is working. “I don’t want to do mouth-to-mouth,” he says, looking up at Claudia beseechingly. “Myka will _kill_ me.”

“Not if you save her girlfriend’s _life_ , man. Is she not even breathing anymore? What are we gonna do?”

Then the Farnsworth buzzes, and Claudia hears Myka say, breathlessly but way too loud, “Did it work?”

And lo and behold, H.G. is suddenly struggling to sit up, only to fall back down and mumble something that sounds like, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Claudia leaps for the Farnsworth. “It worked! I mean, I guess it did, if you mean did you save H.G.’s life or something? Because she just woke up.”

“Thank god,” Myka says. “Tell her I’ll be right there.” And before she even snaps the Farnsworth shut, she’s taken off running.

Claudia turns to H.G., who’s still thrashing around. “Calm down,” she says. “Myka’s on her way. She got whatever it was, so you’ll be fine. I mean, probably. Why are you wearing a football helmet and Artie’s sweater?”

“Not _a_ football helmet,” Pete corrects. “ _Jim Brown’s_ football helmet. It’s like you people don’t listen to me when I talk.”

“Sometimes it’s like that,” Claudia agrees. “But this time, I think the important point is that H.G.’s wearing _a_ football helmet, for probably the first time in her life, _and_ one of Artie’s sweaters, _also_ for probably the first time in her life.” Now she has a worrying suspicion, which she figures she’ll go ahead and spit out: “You and Myka weren’t… um… doing something weird, were you? Like, kinky weird?”

H.G. look at her from behind the helmet’s face mask with something like distaste. Claudia can’t tell if it’s directed at her personally, or just the idea… and then she has her answer when H.G. says, “I assure you that our proclivities do not include anything Artie-related.”

“Just checking. But so…”

“I can only assume,” H.G. says, “that she was trying to keep me from… ah… rupturing.”

“Rupturing?” Pete’s voice rises as he says it; he almost squeaks the end of the word.

“Yes, as though I were in a vacuum, I suppose, but I confess I don’t quite see how the effects were confined to me; I can’t imagine what the artifact thought its container was.”

“The force of your supergenius?” Claudia offers.

“That isn’t,” Claudia hears Myka gasp out as she bursts back into the office, “as far from the realm of possibility as you’d think. In fact, it’s pretty much what happened. _She_ was the container. Helena, I can’t believe you wouldn’t read the whole description, and I _also_ can’t believe you’d have been so careless as to inhale as close to it as you must have.”

“Inhale?” Pete says. “What were you shelving, Cheech and Chong’s original bong?”

H.G. looks blank. “I was shelving a barometer. How could I have known that I was _breathing_ too close to it?”

Myka, in turn, looks horrified. “You could have known by _reading about it_. What is wrong with you?”

“Perhaps I’ve reached the limits of my Warehouse career,” H.G. says.

Claudia balks. “What do you mean? Just because you got whammied? Everybody gets whammied. My money’s on Steve next; isn’t he overdue?”

“Steve almost never gets whammied,” Pete laments. “It’s like artifacts see him coming and just… calm down.”

H.G. says heavily, “You see? Whereas I am not nearly so lucky myself. No, I believe it is time for me to leave these activities behind. I have had some amazing successes, but a new phase must begin.”

“You’re just tired,” Myka says. “We’ll go home, get into—I mean, get _you_ into—a hot bath, and you’ll feel better in no time. Won’t she?” she asks Claudia and Pete. She sounds a little desperate. Well, it’s clearly been a rough day.

“No doubt,” Claudia says, but looking at H.G., she’s not sure. The huge football helmet, which is still on her head, makes her face look really thin. And of course being dwarfed by Artie’s sweater makes most of the rest of her seem tiny and fragile, when she’s certainly not the most solid body to start with. (Claudia has been thinking for some time now that Artie needs to lose some weight, and the fact that this sweater barely covers him, while H.G. could use it as a sleeping bag and probably have room left for Myka to snuggle up, suggests that she’s going to have take some action on that idea sooner rather than later. She’s sure that’s going to be a fun conversation, if “fun” means “anesthesia-less appendectomy.”) “You do look kinda wrung out, H.G.,” she says. “Maybe you just need a vacation.”

H.G. shakes her head. “No, I’m afraid a vacation won’t do. It is time for me to retire.”

Myka’s mouth falls open. Claudia feels her own do the same. The only one of them not gaping, other than H.G., is Pete. He’s looking at her appraisingly. He can’t possibly be thinking this is good idea, can he?

“Hold still, H.G.,” Pete says. He leans over and grips the football helmet with both hands, giving it a good yank. It pops off H.G.’s head, but like it didn’t want to let go; Pete then grabs an extra-large static bag and drops the helmet in.

One good fireworks display later, H.G.’s shaking her head back and forth. “What did I… I feel that I had the strangest idea, as if I were going to leave the Warehouse.”

Claudia can hear the relief in Myka’s voice as she says, “That’s what you were saying you wanted, and it just… I mean, someday, obviously, but…”

Claudia says, “Wait. The football helmet?”

Pete says, “If people would listen to me when I talk, they might understand. It’s _Jim Brown’s_ helmet.” He sits down at the research table, unwraps his burrito, and takes a giant bite, through which he declares, “Wa wa _hire_. _Dih_ wahire. Wahire ih is _hrime_.”

“Oh,” Myka says. “ _Oh_. Well, that actually says something weirdly good about Helena, doesn’t it? Despite the fact that she made the _rookie mistake_ of not reading an artifact’s full description.” But she goes and crouches beside H.G. and touches her formerly puffy face. Clearly she’s not really mad.

“Kiyah,” Pete agrees, mouth still overflowing.

“What,” H.G. says, and she sounds irritated, but she’s gazing at Myka in that adoring way she practically _always_ does these days, “is good about my wanting to leave the Warehouse? I assume that I was in some way mimicking this Jim Brown?”

“Yes,” Myka says. “I mean, yes, according to Pete: Jim Brown wanted to _retire_. He did retire.”

Claudia raises her eyebrows expectantly. She sees H.G. do the same.

“And,” Myka says, “this is—hold _still_ , Helena, I am checking you for injuries—exactly why you strapping yourself in for that nonexistent either excursion would have been a bad idea, because you never would have made it to here, now, which the helmet clearly knows is a pretty good here and now for you.”

Claudia doesn’t get it. She starts wondering if maybe they actually _were_ doing something kinky, before—which is honestly not _that_ hard to believe, given the up-close-and-personal way Myka’s “checking H.G. for injuries”—when Myka adds, “Pete said it: he retired _in his prime_.”

END


End file.
